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Framing walls is a pretty straightforward process, but just like anything, it’s easy to mess up. And let me tell you – our framer, Marty, was not shy about pointing out every little thing that I did wrong while “helping” to frame the lower level at Bunker Hill. So, now I’ll let you learn from my mistakes:

Inspect the straightness of the 2-by-4 before cutting to make sure they aren’t warped – clearly I had too much trust in Home Depot

You don’t actually need to write down the multiples of 16 to mark where the studs should go. Almost all tape measures have small red lines on them that indicate the spacing between wall studs.

And about those red lines, they indicate the center of where the stud should be placed — not the right or left of where the stud goes

Snapping a chalk line to indicate where the plate should go is much easier than marking the floor every foot with a pencil (not that I did that…)

Make sure to measure the height of each wall stud prior to cutting the wood – just because the wall should be straight doesn’t mean that it will be

Also hold back your damn the man attitude – the studs really do need to be 16 inch on center as this lines up with the width of insulation, the length of sheetrock, etc.

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Growing up, we had the best cat named Loser — yes that was his name, but that story is for another time. The one weird thing about him (other than his name) was that when we were pulling weeds in the garden, he would walk right in front of us and “mark his territory.”

And, while it may be a stretch to call what we had at Bunker Hill gardens, and even more of a stretch to call what we needed to do weeding, it did bring back these memories of Loser.

Anyhow, I digress … here are some pictures of what the front and side yards looked like:

And, here was the backyard:

Removing the trees and bushes was quiet the process. First, we had to lasso the top of the trees with a heavy strap that Neil and I pulled on while my Dad cut the base of the tree (you know b/c we didn’t want it to fall into the living room). Then we had to lug this huge metal chain to wrap around the bushes and hook to the excavator so we could pull the stumps out. Let me tell you, all this pulling and lugging felt like it should be a crossfit WOD (and I can say that bc I’ve officially taken 3 classes).

But after just a couple of days, we had ourselves a space that even Loser would have been happy to mark: